Category Archives: Rant

Up until I saw Miley strutting around in barely-there latex attire surrounded by stoned teddy bears, I’d forgotten what truly juices me to make entertainment. Yes I adore making people laugh, but stirring things up, the one indisputable REQUIREMENT for artists in my humble opinion, is what it’s all about. Miley made me remember the high schooler who saw Marilyn Manson storming the stage with his ass hanging out and found his nucleus of inspiration. I was surprised by how much I’d lost it up until that point.

2. The Kaufman Disciple in Me is Her Eternal Fan

The eye-popping vulgar surrealism of the VMA spectacle would have been enough for me, but for her to describe it as a ‘strategic hot mess’? Instant erection, especially with how everyone played right into her hand. This is Kaufmanism at its finest, made even better by the fact that it’s also entertaining all on its own. Flawless victory!

3. I Adore Her FOR the Freak Show

I wasn’t a fan before the transformation and became a pansy ass, drooling fanboy afterward. I absolutely loved everything about the new image and I may have to go as far as saying it inspired a large part of getting a cohesive vision of what I wanted Master Clown Shrooms to be. I wanted to murder anyone saying she didn’t need this, this was disgusting etc. because they seemed natural enemies of what I believed entertainment should be. There was such LIFE and vulgar absurdity to the whole thing that I was transfixed. I still don’t think there’s any better attire for MCS than a Bangerz era Miley shirt, period. I also adored the psychedelic candy-colored 60′s throwback of her following effort, but wonder if I will lose interest as she dismisses this and moves into more ‘normal’ territory. Will things come full circle as I feel as betrayed as her G-rated fans did when the twerking hit the fan?

4. What the Public Sees as Hip-Hop IS Horrible

One of the interesting things about getting older is understanding the conservative viewpoint more and more and man, rap music is a hell on Earth for women. As one who gets pulled towards the vehemently vulgar side of it, I should know. I seek out the deplorable and despicable. I certainly couldn’t blame ANY female for wanting to distance themselves from it, even one who dabbled in an askew version of it with songs and shtick as vulgar as what she is now disgusted by. As Chris Rock said: ‘I love rap music. I’m tired of defending it.’

5. We Don’t Need to Have the ‘THAT’S NOT HIP-HOP’ Argument

I know, I know. 99% of what we see in the public is not what we as fans want to have classified as hip-hop, but we’re too far gone. If you’re not a fan, what you see justifies the hate. What, are we gonna expect an angry 50 year old white man to go on YouTube and look up underground examples of poignant lyricism? No. I’m sorry, but the music has been represented horrifically to the public, and just like I don’t want to take the time to actually understand how the government works before bashing it, I can’t expect the same from the non-rap loving public. Their hatred and dismissal is justified.

6. I’m the White Devil

I know I personally don’t give a fuck about much, but as I get older, I’m forced to realize how much my ‘go-anywhere’ sense of humor will be tied into being a white man. Because I don’t care and no, you can’t hurt me. I’ll often think about what it’s like to be expected to have a reaction every time something happens that’s offensive to your culture. People could be marching through the streets right now with signs saying ‘ALL WHITES SHOULD BE MURDERED’ and I’d shrug and go, ‘So, blunt and a Godzilla movie?’ (in fairness, that’s my response to 95% of life). I’m the pinnacle of overprivileged and spoiled. Even if I don’t believe it, I have to be prepared for my casual nihilism being looked at as white privilege. This is what, I believe, is at the heart of all our racial tension – the fact that white people simply can’t understand the minority experience. As a button-pushing comedian, I must be aware of this.

7. Is the Freak Show She Unleashed Really Black Culture?

Again, if anything, I’d say it’s what mainstream America has been presented as black culture. I don’t know what race (other than shock entertainers) would want to claim what Miley’s Bangerz era produced as a proud tradition, but if I seem clueless or wrong on this, well, refer to number 6.

8. My Complicated White Boy Hip-Hop Love Story

All this talk about whites taking black culture makes me think of my own love story. The soft, nerdy, sexless, spoiled, bitch-made white boy who was introduced to rap music and LOST HIS FUCKING MIND. No female has made me fall that hard. But it was a double edged sword. I adored it, but knew it wasn’t for me at all, especially considering the thug-based music I REALLY went wild for (D-Block comes to mind). Nothing was more confusing than having a new reason to live and knowing it wasn’t meant for me. It was like finding the boyfriend you want to spend your life with when your father is Fred Phelps.

9. I Felt Truly Betrayed By Rap Changing

Because of the above sentiments, I kept my obsession to myself. I rapped silently in a corner and treated my ‘I’m gonna kill you’ lyrics as jokes between friends (‘Ha, I should never be saying things like this!’) I knew the game would never let me in, and that King Mathers had a background of being poor and tough on his side. I’d never be able to do what I loved so much, only, perhaps, if I found a comedic twinge to it. People like me didn’t get passes to this world. Then I heard Asher Roth. It felt like a stab through the heart. Here was everything I felt ashamed over being with a hit single. But that was nothing. Then the corny white boys flooded in and then the faggy ones, AND PEOPLE ACCEPTED THEM. How? WHY? This is why I stayed in the closet! There were RULES! You guys don’t care? We’re actually gonna let people like this get fans?! I wasn’t happy that I could fit in now – it sickened me! I mean, I’m a true fan of this! Or am I?

10. Verbal Columbine

What I found in rap was a way to do a school massacre using only your mouth. Where could I dump all this anger? How can I do it without going against how well-raised and soft I am? Then I discovered people with verbal cannons machine-gunning everything in sight. The flow, the cadences, the delivery, the punchlines, the anger, my lord! It was ATTACKING people verbally! Eminem showed me how to kill people without doing it. D Block showed me just how violent and brutal speech could be. What I fell in love with was the art of having a marriage between flow and beat and the anger that allowed you to get out. Lord Jamar’s comments about Eminem were beyond illuminating. Wait, there’s people who think rap is more than being as lyrical as breath allows while unleashing in a way you never thought possible? Oh, wait, it’s supposed to be about soul and hyper-lyricism doesn’t matter? Hmm. Maybe I’m not a rap fan. Maybe I pray at the altar of intricate and disgusting rhymes. Most people probably don’t understand how real the mumble rap hate is for me. One time I brought myself to near-tears AT WORK getting into an argument over Young Thug. Again, I felt betrayed. THIS IS NOT HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE. Fuck, I thought white boys were bad enough, now they’re not even SAYING WORDS? My passion runs DEEP, but maybe it’s just all about the intertwining of words and beats (enthralling!) and a release that virtually no other area of life allows (even more enthralling!) So in the end, I’m not quite sure how to classify my passion, nor my relationship to this music I love. Who knows? Maybe if I were in the public eye, ol’ MCS would be just another Miley Cyrus. I can only hope to do right towards the culture I, in some way or another, absolutely fucking love.

I remember excitedly taking the disc out of its case and inserting it into my player. This was it, I was finally going to watch my brand new Andy Kaufman DVD, a recording of a show he did for PBS’ Soundstage that aired in 1983, the very year I was born. I press play. Then…

“We now join the Andy Kaufman show, already in progress.”

Wait, it’s coming in in the middle of a scene, did the DVD player skip or something…

No, no, no. Of course not. This is classic Andy, gleefully screwing with people’s heads, the entire purpose of the bit to make me wonder, exactly as I did, if something was wrong with my DVD player.

This is the story I tell people when they ask about my Andy obsession, because, as I have just stated, I am obsessed with Andy Kaufman. It’s one thing for a person with no knowledge of Andy to think the DVD messed up, or even for someone with a curious, middling interest, but me? The disciple? The one whose love for Andy makes Christian’s love for Jesus seem weak and whose brain is so enamored with Kaufman’s work that he has to be reminded that not everyone thinks like he does and most are baffled and turned off by these antics? He got me?

Yup, and that’s why he was so great. A life dedicated to him and he still got me, genuinely, for a few seconds. The fun and frustration of Andy was never knowing.

His influence is impossible to understate. He’s the godfather of the entire reality TV genre, and the direct parent of people like Tom Green, Sacha Baron Cohen, Tim & Eric, and Eric Andre. He is the one who invented trolling decades before it was even a word, the one who truly understood the same underlying principle of humanity that causes pick-up artists to have success: that’s it’s not about what you think, but what you feel. His abrasive parody of a lounge singer, the fleshy-faced Tony Clifton, was a character centered around a nucleus of disturbance, driven by the immaculate knowledge that when you get them to dig their claws in, you’ve truly got them.

As you should be able to tell from this article so far, me associating Andy Kaufman and his influence with various areas of life isn’t that uncommon. So I was quite surprised this year when I began to receive a bunch of memes and articles from friends comparing my idol to a man who spent the entire year leaving the media and us as hopelessly strung out as one of Andy’s sexually charged bouts of overhyped female wrestling: President-elect Donald Trump.

There it is. The person who is now our President being mentioned in the same sentence as perhaps the greatest trickster of all time. I smelled Kaufmanism on Trump immediately, but figured it was just me. Then I realized many others had the same idea.

There is a separate article to be written about how I, and we as a society, have a hard time telling if Trump is serious or not, the very hallmark of a Kaufman performance. But that’s not what’s important here. We can debate his intentions until Andy’s corpse pops up and starts dancing again, something all of us fans are patiently waiting for. The point is, it wasn’t just me detecting the direct influence of this oddball cult comic, but everyone. That means that this entire Presidential campaign undeniably has vibes of Andy’s work.

And you know what that means?

It’s time to give up.

It’s time for every bug-eyed disciple of Andy looking to cause any kind of similar stir to throw in the towel, shut off the Mighty Mouse record, and call it a day. It’s over. It’s done. We’ve been hopelessly outshined. What can we possibly do now? Disrupt a show at a comedy club? A television program? Do some nutty stunt out on the street? This guy just fucking Kaufmaned the goddamn Presidential race.

How can we get higher than that? How can we possibly inspire more madness and confusion and beautifully absurd moments than Donald Trump has this year? Most in the spirit of Andy is how the media whines about his endless coverage while endlessly covering him, with Trump’s ‘I dare you not to react’ antics exposing as much about our species as the aforementioned pick-up game did.

I am not here to discuss Trump’s politics or effortlessly spark more debates by talking about the morality and ethics of what he has done. I’m not here to sing his praises or throw mud at him. I’m not here to worry about our future.

All I’m saying is we have a new undisputed king of Kaufmanism, one who took a concept birthed in cult comedy and relegated to the outer reaches of the internet, trolling, and made it worldwide, global, mainstream, catching an audience the magnitude of which Andy probably never dreamed of. Sure, he was like the Kanye of the early 80′s when his wrestling drama was constantly front page, but even then, he was just an entertainer.

And that’s why, my dear brothers and sisters of Kaufmanism, we all need to give up. Andy’s spirit of anarchy has been unleashed in a way that no one thought possible, and any attempts we make to honor his behavioral science-based madness will simply pale in comparison.

Grandiose are our imaginations may be, I don’t think any of us ever even attempted to think about using Kaufmanism to enter Washington, let alone succeeding in the process. No matter where we go from here, my particular mind has been blown by this unexpected shoving of my weirdo god’s influence into mainstream culture, and in that aspect, I must say, to whom or whatever merry prankster, if any, is out there controlling all of this:

As humans, there are certain things we hope for in life: love, health, success, and, apparently, the resurgence of the undisputed king of 90′s cheese, ‘Full House’. Wanting new episodes of the iconic American sitcom was something I often mused about out loud as I sat on the couch watching it with various friends of mine. The show had evolved into a personal litmus test of sorts – I put it on to see if people were compatible with me. Male or female, romantic interest or friend, I simply didn’t want to be around someone who wasn’t down for late night binging sessions of overwhelming wholesomeness. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I get into the glorious cultural moment that is the return of this show, now packaged under the kinda idiotic, kinda brilliant name of ‘Fuller House’ (Fuller being DJ’s new last name through marriage, get it?), I have to explore my history with it, as it had the same beautifully slow forming but then suddenly burgeoning explosion of passion that’s usually reserved for relationships.

It’s difficult to remember a time when ‘Full House’ wasn’t a part of my obsession Rolodex, but I have vague adolescent memories of it being a pillar of utter sitcom corniness. Therefore, to watch it initially was a towering act of the highest quality cliche irony. ‘Oh, look how cheesy this is, let’s laugh at it!’ The beyond-digestible, soothing nature of the show led me to start using it the way one might use the sound of a fan to fall asleep at night. To have ‘Full House’ on was, very simply put, cozy. Forgive me for not remembering the exact timeline, but in 2007, when I moved out to California, I was into the show enough to ask for the holy grail that year for Christmas: the complete series box set. That was when it all changed.

We now had access to every episode ever, packaged in a box that was shaped like the actual house (again – so digestible!). This brings us up to the first part of this article, when it became not only compulsive nightly viewing, but also a way to see who could kick it with me. Years before ‘Netflix and chill’ became a pop culture behemoth, I was asking people if they wanted to blaze up and put on ‘Full House’. But then, a funny thing happened.

I don’t know if it was the repetition of endless viewings or the fact I was slowly getting older, but I started to realize something: there was nothing ironic about my fixation. I legitimately loved ‘Full House’. Suddenly, I couldn’t see anything but a well-oiled machine, spouting out jokes that weren’t corny as I’d originally thought, but actually pleasant, playful punchlines, the likes of which might have come out of the mouths of Abbott and Costello back in the day (OK, the jokes were still corny, but there was a method, a flow to it, damn it). The show zipped along with a breezy, easy-to-love tone that dared you not to smile. I gave in every time. Then came the dreamy wondering: can you imagine if there were new episodes of this?!

Well, here we are, in 2016, almost three full decades later (pun intended), and our favorite family is back, with classically polarizing results. What I’m going to attempt to do is break down why ‘Fuller House’ isn’t the disaster many claim it to be in a way that doesn’t reek of fanboy fervor (in that particular aspect, I may happily fail), while also dissecting what actually made the original show so popular and gave it such a lasting appeal.

Let me say something right off the bat: ‘Fuller House’ is ‘Full House’. Not only did the entire cast return (sans the Olsen twins), but the creator and writers and directors of the past all came back, keeping very much in tone with the family-centric theme that is the show’s backbone (more on that in a bit). I often found myself cracking up simply from going, “My lord, that is a ‘Full House’ joke if ever I heard one!” The cheesy nature of the jokes is so classically on point, so perfectly aligned with what the made the show what it was in the first place, that I can only imagine the wave of dissatisfaction comes from expecting something new. As my brother succinctly put it, “This is ‘Full House’ in 2016.”

To be fair, there are some minor changes. The ridiculously fan-friendly nature of the show (a detractor for some, to me it feels good to know they know who this is for) has led to perhaps the newest element of ‘Fuller House’, the breaking of the fourth wall. In the basically-a-reunion-special first episode, the entire gang, as I’m sure you’ve heard about on social media, gives an eye-rolling and strangely extended look directly at the camera after saying Michelle couldn’t make it because she’s off running her fashion empire. Another dig at the Olsen twin’s overpriced clothes comes later in the series, and the pathetic nature of reunion shows is winkingly referred to. Candace Cameron’s involvement with ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and ‘The View’ are also referenced, and while this may feel like cheap pandering to some, I just see it as, like I stated above, knowing who their audience is.

There’s also a somewhat more adult tone (although never stronger than a weak PG-13), most clearly seen in jokes revolving around Jodie Sweetin’s enhanced breasts. Some critics thought this to be jarring and distasteful and yet, I feel there is close to an entirely separate article to be written here about the fascinating way the first three seasons of ‘Full House’, all released in the 80′s, have the same slightly more adult tone to them, with words like ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ used and a few mildly risque sex jokes thrown in. By season 4, which coincided with the 90′s kicking off, it’s almost shocking to see how quickly the new decade ushered in a lighter tone.

That being said, I cannot see how any true fan could think this was anything other than a glorious, completely on point revival of everything that was loved (or hated) about the original show. Beyond the cheesiness, ‘Fuller House’ also perfectly captures the polarizing feel that defined its predecessor (is it so corny it’s good, or so corny it’s bad?). When the show premiered last month, it was an absolute wet dream for those involved hoping to make a splash in these modern Twitter-obsessed times. Whether it was from eye-rolling or sheer glee, ‘Fuller House’ got the comments flowing in, and was trending as soon as it premiered. From the random and painfully awkward Macy Gray cameo, to the impromptu ‘New Kids on the Block’ dance number, so many scenes on the show were the pinnacle of social media obsession fodder. Something else happened with insane speed once it premiered – a second season was green lit. To me, it was this instant success that summed up the perfect nature of the reboot, for, if ‘Full House’ has always been seen as the apex of watered-down sitcom mediocrity, why did it last for eight seasons and warrant a continuance that was also immediately gobbled up?

To find the deceptively simple answer, we need look no further than the classic theme song, beautifully redone by Carly Rae Jepsen for the new series (just chew on the fact that Ms. ‘Call Me Maybe’ is doing the remake of this iconic theme song and tell me everything doesn’t seem right with America). We don’t even need to delve that far into it. Just look at the opening line: whatever happened to predictability?

Has anyone ever actually taken the time to ruminate on that lyric, rather than just mindlessly singing along to it? The blatancy is shocking. Whatever happened to predictability?! That’s like walking into a wild frat party and screaming, ‘Whatever happened to abstinence?!’ In the world of art and entertainment, where there’s an endless supply of self-important people making self-important work that, you know, matters, ‘Full House’ had a set of balls big enough to spit it out right off the bat. Let’s be predictable and give ‘em what they want. Say what you want about the show, but that line is a damn near Andy Kaufman-level of fourth wall-breaking head games. To get mad at the nature of the jokes when that lyric brings you into every episode means that the joke, dear haters, is on you. The creators put their intentions right there on the table, as unsubtle as a well-endowed flasher at a restaurant.

So as the jokes land with beautiful, predictable rhythm, each episode builds toward the other thing it’s known for besides cornball zingers – the sappy moment. You know, that part right around the 20 minute mark where the music kicks in and tells you it’s time for the lesson to be force fed to you and everyone grumbles at the obviousness.

The thing is, after they roll their eyes, they go out into their own real lives and end up wanting exactly what’s being preached on screen. For most humans, life revolves around love, family, and caring for and being there for one another. Nearly everyone’s biggest personal quest is to find love and start a family of their own. It intrinsically beats inside of us whether we want it to or not. To have your eye roll be legitimate and validated, you’d have to never want to be hugged or comforted in your life.

But you do, don’t you? We all do. We all want to know someone is going to be there to care for us, to love us, to tell us we’re special. We want to rely on that, to know it’s always going to be there. We want it to be…predictable. Not jarring. Real life has too much of that. We want, no, need comfort, love, and routine. And really, in the end, what is the message of ‘Full House’? Well, simply, love. Family is important. More important than anything else. Everything we do, we do for our families. But wait…wasn’t that the main theme behind another series, one that was miles away from the critical groans ‘Full House’ receives? You see, when you boil it down, ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Full House’ really aren’t on opposite ends of the spectrum at all – they both essentially show what humans will do to love and protect those who mean something to them. Just because they never had Danny’s head on the back of a tortoise doesn’t mean the shows aren’t remarkably similar at their nucleus.

So why was ‘Full House’ so popular and why are we getting a second season of its new incarnation? Because the show is us. This supposedly brain-dead, routine sitcom perfectly encapsulates what keeps us all going through life, which is the love and kinship of friends and family. When you watch ‘Full House’, you have, quote Johnny Depp in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, “found the main nerve”.

War always seems to be on the verge of breaking out, terrorists are endlessly threatening to kill us, and half of the world is losing their minds over a man who is really nothing more than a narcissistic and capable showman. What will happen to us? Will the world be ok? Will we be OK? That’s not just the tone of today. Those sentiments have prevailed throughout our history. You see, when all life is throwing at us is constant uncertainty and fear, one show had the balls, the heart, and, dare I say, the maturity, to get over the pathetically vain and puerile need for entertainment to be edgy and say, ‘Hey, whatever happened to predictability?’

‘Full House’ was and always will be your mom’s meatloaf: comfort food for a scared race. Throughout the years, millions of families around the world have had a show they can watch with their kids, laugh at, and be reminded of why exactly they get out of bed in the morning, and you want to rail against it for being too safe, too mild, too predictable?

In elementary school I was part of a play called, ‘Of Mice and Mozart‘. I wasn’t one of the main roles. The play called for a group of dancing and singing mice and I was one of them. I remember I had to do the classic clap and sway move while singing some lyrics. The shyness already a part of me, I was given talks on making sure to actually participate and not just stand there. During the play my mom was going to be there filming. So, for her, I went for it. I clapped my hands and swayed like I actually wanted to do it. Even after all this time, I remember it not feeling good to do so. It felt dirty. I was just doing it for mom. I have a distinct memory of watching the tape afterwards and my mom’s giddy voice sauntering onto the recording: ‘He’s really getting into it!’

I’m the ‘If you put half this energy into your schoolwork…’ kid. In fact, I am the absolute pinnacle of that type of human. It’s always been obvious to everyone that I could do it if I wanted to. Except me. My public self-shaming mutated over the years with several different shades of self-awareness, but while there was always a little extra madness sprinkled on top of my garden-variety school angst, I believe I used to not be aware of my potential, that I was genuinely oblivious to the power.

Nowadays, the growing pains are raining down, maybe for the first time ever, and I’m starting to see just how capable I am. With that came another complete embracing, this time of a beautifully written inspirational line: Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Yup, that line sums up any kind of growing I’ve actually done. I internalized the world is there for the taking and it shook me with a terror I’ve never felt before. A terror of power. Maybe it’s just the DMT-level mindfuck of realizing your potential after a life spent slaving away under the watchful eye of passivity, but the concept of LEADING, of taking CONTROL of the situation, of making life work for YOU, and actually MAKING what you want HAPPEN, is far, far too much for even a brain that I thought was stretched enough to gorge itself on any concept, no matter how large. How humans lust for power is beyond me – I go MAD just THINKING about it.

The next step in realizing I’m in control of my destiny is breaking through the supposed omnipresent apathy and realizing that I’ve actually acted in this way when I do want something. I chased the girls that made me excited enough to push away all of the garbage and actually feel the urge to want them. I took the train to New York City seven days a week and, without any knowledge of the city, started wandering around to any open mic I could find and performing stand-up in front of strangers, making my name known on the local circuit in a little under a year and a half. I stood in the freezing East Coast winter cold for 12 hours for a chance to audition for Last Comic Standing and made it past the first round. I called people who were barely acquaintances and went to places far away and dealt with odd social politics just to get bags of weed when I wanted to smoke. I up and left for the opposite end of the country with no plan whatsoever, no job set up or contacts or knowledge of the town, just because I had a dream. I wrote for endless hours and contacted local professors and police officers to research and complete a novel I had a thumping idea for. I forced myself to pick up a pen and actually try rapping after a closeted lust for it and performed it all over Los Angeles. I drove two hours there and two hours back in the middle of the night to perform in front of five people for ten minutes.

When I truly want something, I go for it. Sometimes instances like roaming around NY, finishing a novel, or rapping in Vegas actually get to me and I feel a rare surge of genuine pride. Putting all this together though, it all ties back into those goddamn mouse moves.

Often times, many times, damn near every time, what I’m supposed to do is not something I want to do. It’s those mouse moves. I don’t give a fuck about them or the play. But mom does. She wants to see me join in and it would mean a lot to her if I did. So I dance them. Of course I can. I can rip up that fucking stage better than any of those other mice, you bastards! I can ace college courses, and be open and polite and friendly, and get through job interviews with flying colors, and be a perfectly fun, interesting gentlemen on first dates, and take on Hollywood with my unique sense of artistry, and care for a girl and children and buy nice things and sit at Sunday dinner with my parents with the most suburban nice guy smile ever plastered on as mommy and daddy grin with approval. Of course I can do all of that. Not only am I not different from anyone who has, but I’m insanely smart, aware, and capable!

But those are mouse moves. It’d mean a lot to mom if I did them. It’d mean a lot to dad. To my friends. To my relatives. To the whole fucking world. Because let’s not lie – there IS a right way to act. The maturity blueprint is there for a reason. Any true nihilist still attempting to function will tell you that. We’ve learned after all these years, that for most, if not all, of the humans, this path helps with your health. Why fight it? Look at everyone who tried – I fought the world and the world won. Our heroes are all dead. Put them up on the wall but don’t be like them. College is preached more publicly than an ‘On the Road‘-esque lifestyle because overall, more people can handle the structure, the mouse moves, than can the unconventionality.

The mouse moves make most people feel good. Proud. Productive. Correct. Right. But to me, to my type? To all those too-smart-for-their-own-good, ‘Put that effort into the schoolwork’ dreamers? We see too much. We’re bored. Most people look at the stars, get a goofy smile, and say, ‘We’re pretty insignificant, huh?’, but then forget it. They take school or their job or their kids seriously. They don’t actually buy into the insignificance. They still truly believe their insect lives matter. But those of us who’ve internalized the insect? Those of us whose brains won’t let us forget for one second the magnitude of actual reality? It’s all mouse moves. The truth is blinding, hiding the importance of the mouse moves behind its shimmering brilliance.

So I know about the mouse moves. I know how to do them. I know why people think they’re important. I know how people react to the people who get into them. I know how the world spreads its legs and opens itself up wide and raw to any who oblige to do them. Never let it be said that I don’t grasp everything there is to know about those mouse moves the same way the world’s most successful billionaires do.

But they’re for you. My enthusiastic clapping and swaying is for mommy and daddy and everyone else for whom the inner insect doesn’t burn as bright as the sun itself. I’ll do the mouse moves when I want something. Problem is, nowadays, with all the above knowledge internalized, when I know anything I want on this planet is entirely up to me, when I know I’ve rocked the mouse moves when I wanted to, when my Earth-shattering, parent-smile-inducing, the-whole-world-applauds potential gets in my face with that smug, glaring smile, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what the fuck I actually, legitimately, genuinely, truthfully want.

Whatever it is is gonna make my mouse ass groove like a motherfucker. But only when I’m doing those moves for me, you bastards. I’m far too aware now to waste energy dancing because it’s what you want. Insects have no ability for that. They know the world shrugs at their death. In turn, no matter how mad anyone gets, these insect feet move only for me.

The other day, walking by a Hooters restaurant inspired a rant in me that ended up feeling like a graduation of sorts. I’ve been both the type of guy who doesn’t get girls and a class clown for a long time now, and the combination of those two qualities pretty much ensures a life of slavery to gleefully spouting off different reasons why girls won’t fuck me as I look for laughs, the dark nature of comedian blood allowing me to not care how much undesirability it telegraphs to the opposite sex. It was this comedic mindset that led me to spew endless tirades about the subject.

However, a lot of it ended up feeling like a disorder rather than a proclivity for mockery (I’m sure any true comedian will tell you they’re the same thing, but still). I wasn’t looking for actual sharp, thought-out bits, but rather just rabidly ranting any chance I got. The piece that Hooters inspired seemed like an epiphany and an elevation. After latching on to the simple fact of how uncomfortable it would make me feel to eat around girls dressed in standard Hooters attire, a rant that had been bubbling in me forever, one that stopped and questioned why guys always seemed to want to have females around, burst out of me. Suddenly, I felt like I had a genuine bit on my hands, hard-won after years of mumbling through lame ‘I don’t fuck’ diatribes. The viewpoint of wanting to avoid girls (especially hot ones) at all costs seemed like a graduate thesis of reality-based comedy for me.

The idea of how awful it was to be surrounded by females when you weren’t a typical horn dog looking for sex seemed beautifully, perversely true. Bolstered by my ongoing theory of the purity behind shelling out money in exchange for sexual favors or fun, I started to see how much the idea of having casual sex was anchored to ego. I thought about the girls in tight tank tops and boy shorts waitressing at Hooters. Why would one want to learn to be competent around them? The simple answer, of course, is sex, but it is literally impossible for sex to have no tie in to the ego for males. When you get it, it makes you feel good, validated. Broken down to the most natural terms, if you have a penis, being able to get a female is why you’re here. Even someone who claims they’re just completely enamored with how vagina feels is still getting Pavlovian blow-back confidence from the experience of intercourse.

Otherwise, in a world where strip clubs and prostitution exist, why wouldn’t I simply just pay to be around and interact with girls that look like that? Why would I want to spend my time devoting hours upon hours to developing a skill set where I can come across as desirable to these type of girls when, if I really want some attention from a hot female, I could just drop the cash and forget about the talking? Other than, of course, most folks not having the money to drop weekly bundles on strippers, I still believe it all ties back into ego. You want to be able to feel like you’re capable, and you want the buzz that inevitably, unavoidably comes from being with attractive women or with a lot of women. In my mind, this conclusion seemed to break down so much of our hook up culture as certifiably bat shit-insane that I walked around with an internal smile glaring out from me, knowing I’d gotten a one-up on the collective cultural rituals and could dismiss the otherwise undismissible, never having to jump through these idiotic hoops ever again.

When I put these kind of viewpoints out there, I always feel it necessary to state how much I’m not just some horribly cold misogynist, and how much I do still want and believe in love, real love, full on love, change-your-profile-picture, hold-hands-in-the-mall, can’t-get-that-goofy-smile-off-your-face love. I just see the two splitting into a giant dichotomy, with the horrific hook-up-influenced, fast-paced dating world on one side, and the world of mature, actual romance based on compatible personalities on the other. Full of a mind state that seems positively modern and evolved, I want to forgo the awful world of dating and hooking up and just wait for the love.

But is that right, or even possible? Is it asking for the wonderful end result without going through the not-so-wonderful and yet essential building blocks leading up to it? I am actually a firm believer in not looking for the one, and fully back up the notion a lot of people have that the right one always kind of just saunters into your life when you least expect it, leaving you with your jaw agape in joy as to how this most utterly amazing person ended up in front of you. It’s not just a theory for me. The girls I’ve felt were the best matches for me, whether we ended up together, briefly fooling around, or just left to languish completely in my fantasies, did just kind of end up in front of me (usually, one way or the other, thanks to that classic purveyor of romance, retail stores). But while I do honestly believe in that, my mentality of wanting to do away with the looking process is something I believe is completely akin to what is happening to the younger generations.

You see, I’m a prime candidate for this. I’ve been the class weirdo for as long as I can remember, with a self-absorption closer to being based in autism than narcissism keeping me locked inside my head, fantasizing, theorizing and plotting, coupled with healthy doses of vanity and purpose due to my unending obsession with entertainment and becoming a part of it. None of what I’ve listed above is proper for being a well-developed person who consistently interacts socially. But I always thought that was just me. I’m a comedian, a clown, an entertainer, with big ol’ dreams. A Kanye-level focusing on myself seems par for the course.

Until social media reared its omnipresent head. I’ve written about this before (you can find the full article beneath this one here on this blog), but I believe social media has committed the unforgivable crime of turning an entire generation into, well, me.

I don’t want to repeat what I’ve already covered in the other article, but what social media has done is bring a classic cliche to life in screaming technicolor: if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Being a movie star is pretty much the base-level, garden-variety American daydream. Your face is up on billboards and magazine covers, and people are endlessly talking about you and adoring you. Of course, the realities of what it takes to actually get to that point are a tiresome, game-playing-centric gambit to enter into an industry that is said to be hopelessly, vainly cutthroat. Most folks wouldn’t dream of actually going through this process (even people for whom it’s been their lifelong dream are often turned off by the actual journey), but what if you could get a glorious facsimile of it simply by signing up for a free website?

Simply put, social media puts the emphasis on you. The status bar on facebook tantalizingly asks you, ‘What’s on your mind?’, and Instagram pretty much exists for the people who thought facebook and Twitter weren’t selfie-centric enough. When you pick out a profile picture you look gorgeous in, put it up online, and come back to a bunch of comments and likes, that is a Fisher-Price My-First-Fame-Experience that gives you 100% of the ego validation with none of the pitfalls that accompany the laborious journey to make it in Hollywood.

Therefore, as social media becomes more and more normal (I’m sure some of you have grandparents on facebook), the younger generations, who have no idea what it’s like to exist without it, become more and more focused on the self. I believe this process has had an extremely muscular hand in helping destroy the ideals of old, times when people were married with kids and a career before they even hit their twenties. In this day and age, people look at the idea of marriage and say, ‘What about me?’

Much has been made of the gradual destruction of dating in these generations, and this clearly has to do not only with the new emphasis on the self, but also a similar awakening to the ridiculousness of the traditions of old, with people wondering why they should go through the trials and tribulations of dating in the same way I wondered why I should have to deal with learning how to sculpt a female-friendly version of myself. The hook-up culture is a by-product of our new narcissism amplifying decades-old, basic human problems.

For example, the classic example of the nice guy finishing last. I believe there has always been a bit of distortion surrounding this. It’s not based on the guy being nice so much as it is a nice guy’s approach being more straightforward and real. Game is getting a child to take medicine. You don’t need game to get a kid to eat a piece of candy. Its entire existence is to help soften you to what’s happening. If I want to lead my dog into his cage, I don’t just point to it and say, ‘Get in!’ That’s simply too blatant and real. I shove a piece of food tauntingly close to his face, let him focus on it, and gradually use it to guide him to the cage before throwing it in, having him follow after it and then locking the door. Got him! Game is simply that piece of food.

So my firm belief is that it’s not about the niceness, it’s about the fact that you’re not cushioning the process. My theory that I could probably never get a girl without game is not based in cliche comedian self-pity – I simply understand what’s happening to the younger generations. Without game, I’m blatantly saying, ‘Hey, this is me. This is how I am. I’m available. The person you’re seeing is just me, no games, no seduction, no routines, so if you’re down with that then we can start to build a relationship based on who we really are.’ That’s always been a terrifying concept for humans, let alone the narcissism-soaked modern ones. Girls don’t friend zone guys because they’re too nice, girls friend zone guys because they’re nowhere near being ready to be in a relationship where truth is at the core of it, where looking down the line seems to lead to, oh fuck, Christ no….marriage?! Great relationships are like classic sitcom will-they-or-won’t-they fodder. Why? Because every great relationship should have a solid base in friendship. So, if you’re not old enough, or not ready, your body says, ‘Well, we definitely click, but you feel like a buddy, I can talk to you, relate to you, we’re perfect together and um, that’s a pretty damn heavy feeling.’ Is it not better to just be with a guy who’s hot and knew how to talk to you at a party enough to fuck you and now when you look at him you really don’t see that future vision, but fuck yes, isn’t that the point? Realness, as always, is scary.

Therefore I believe the oft-spoke of destruction of dating is absolutely tied into the growing sense of self. Reality becomes the thing to avoid, with endless hook ups or I-don’t-need-anyone independence becoming the much more preferable option. To today’s kids, the concept of romance seems archaic and scary, a pillar of the classic way of life that has been crushed under a lust for selfies. You’re not a slave to your parent’s cultural expectations and you sure as hell don’t need someone because you are self-empowered and have plans, goddamn it. Who wants to be tied down when your Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are all screaming your importance at you on the daily? Out with the old, and in with the new.

Which brings us to the popularity of Donald Trump. Mr. Trump is rising to power in a time where people are being forced to deal with not only homosexuality, but also people switching their entire gender. A time when ‘Merry Christmas’ is an insult. A time when everything is up for grabs as offensive and feelings are easier to step on than ever before. A time when marriage is a joke.

While there are undoubtedly jackasses that support Trump, I feel the collective dunce cap being placed over his supporter’s heads is just as dangerous as the blanket statements about Muslims he’s made part of his campaign. People are freaking out about how much popularity he’s gained without ever attempting to understand it. I am in the unique position of having had my father explain his support for him to me, so I’m awash in a world of lefties with a direct line to what one of the right, one that I respect, is thinking (for the record, I try to not pick either side).

It is my belief that Trump represents a traditionalism that is beyond refreshing to an older generation having to deal with calling Bruce Jenner ‘Caitlyn’. A time when we weren’t politically correct. A time where men were, well, I don’t want to use the ‘men were men’ cliche, but certainly weren’t obsessed with their next selfie and how the current news items made them feel inside. Trump is speaking to a generation who married early and worked hard at the expense of self. To imagine a man from my grandfather’s generation coming home from a long day of busting his ass to provide for his family to take a selfie in the mirror and post about how his job made him feel is one of the most hilarious things I could think of.

This was a generation that put the collective good before the self. I was utterly ecstatic that Whole Foods didn’t require me to wear a uniform or shave, instead wanting me to feel like myself. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy that, right? How distinctly human! Well, my dad’s response to the lack of dress code at work to promote individuality was a half amused/half bewildered ‘what kind of company is this?’ He doesn’t care about kids expressing themselves. Employees should look a certain way. So should America.

To those who believe this, Trump is a savior. No, I don’t care what all you little sensitive hippies think about it. Muslims are consistently the ones to attack us, so that’s who we’re going after. Immigration is a problem, so we’re building a wall. Trump’s mouth is alienating to many, but there is definitely an old school, fuck-your-feelings logic to all of it. Donald Trump speaks for every bewildered, confused traditionalist who wants to point at Caitlyn Jenner and say, ‘Um, I’m sorry, but that’s a dude’, every frustrated-by-political-correctness American who wants to say, ‘Why the hell wouldn’t we target Muslims?’ He is brash, boorish, confident, outspoken, and, most importantly, the complete antithesis of every single attribute that modern social media-based narcissism is bringing out in people.

I find it important to state again that I’m not in support of either side. The reason is because a dichotomy is growing in this country right now. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump could not be more opposite and neither could the old-school and new-school lines of thought. Now, more than ever, is the time to attempt balance. There are a lot of positives to the way we are evolving (more and more acceptance of new lifestyles) and a lot of negatives (crushingly sensitive mentalities, detached, self-obsessed kids), but change is happening. The hard part is walking that tight rope between the two, which is intrinsically less fun than picking a side and vehemently defending it.

In other words, I might want to do away with the process of looking for a girl, and it might even be logical, but am I losing something essential to the experience of being human by completely focusing my attention inward? Have we become afraid of being hurt without realizing how essential that unwanted emotion is? And is the reason for Trump’s meteoric rise the uncomfortable truth that sometimes unwanted emotions need to be placed front and center?

I don’t know, but I sure hope a lot of people read this blog and tell me how brilliant I am.

Of all the jaw-dropping things that have made me wonder, ‘Am I really that far ahead of the rest of society?!’, none have been so maddening as the articles that pop up questioning if social media is making us more narcissistic. Their existence is utterly stupefying. What’s next, an article debating whether or not a shotgun blast to the temple affects critical thinking?

I had social media’s number from the first moment I encountered it. Way back around 2004, when myspace was making its first appearance, I remember having a conversation with my ex about selecting pictures to put online. The dialogue was something akin to:

“Yeah, but, you’re only putting the pictures that you look best in up, right?”

“Of course. Who wants to put bad pictures on myspace?”

That was the moment I lost it. It was as if her statement, spoken with such a sense of, ‘duh!’, behind it, immediately confirmed all my fears about the possibilities of social media and how easily it was going to tap into human narcissism. Recognizing the traits I had seen in myself in those using the site (and even in those early days, it already seemed as if everyone had suddenly jumped onto myspace), I, echoing the sentiment of Groucho’s classic line about belonging to clubs who’d have him as a member, wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

But was it my traits that stood out so blatantly to me, or the overall traits of my people, the artists, the dreamers, the entertainers?

Recently I saw a campaign from an 18-year old Instagram model who was rallying against the fake nature of social media, recaptioning all her photos with realistic descriptions like, ‘It took me 100 different shots to get my stomach to look this flat.’ In the video accompanying her campaign, she tearfully recounts how much she took photos only for likes and followers, how fake that all was, and how she wants her deleting her account to be a ‘wake up call’ to people that social media just isn’t as (gasp!) real as the real world.

What a fucking genius, eh?

Watching this stream of brilliance spew forth from her tear-stained teenage face, I finally realized just exactly what it was that upset me so much about this entire now-inescapable realm of online fuckery: it allows people to get a taste of the show business life with no work whatsoever.

Models take many different shots to get the right version for the magazine cover. Directors also take many different shots to get the right take for the final cut. Musicians do many takes to get the best possible version on the album. Publicists exist solely to sculpt acceptable versions of whatever star they’re representing to the general public. It’s all smoke and mirrors, it’s all controlled, it’s all fake, and it’s all been going on for hundreds of years now. It’s not exactly a revelation. This is how show business works.

People will often give me a hard time for how obsessively active I became on facebook after spewing venom at it for so many years. No shit. Why do you think I was so vehement about not joining? I knew social media was created exactly for people like me. It was as if the Gods of artistic vanity had come down from the sky to create a website exclusively for their loyal subjects. I knew, in my heart, from the very first second I heard of it, that social media would be everything I could ever want out of life.

And why not? I’m a lifelong student of entertainment. What could be better than a format to readily share my talents with the public? I could put carefully constructed pictures of myself up, sculpt a persona through well-thought out posts, and in general be given a place to experience a pseudo-version of what the already-established’s were doing. Hey, this is what we do! You think Jimmy Iovine saw Eminem walk in with a freshly blonde head of hair and thought, ‘Hmm, but that’s not your natural color, Marshall’? He damn near flipped his lid thinking of how much he could now sell this platinum-topped potty mouth to the public. Reading Eminem’s mother’s book, you also get a sense of how financially beneficial the record companies thought all the family drama was. Should they have started up a campaign tearfully telling people they were wrong for wanting the public to eat up Em talking about raping his mother?

I mean, they could have, as it obviously has despicable undertones, but my point is how much this already is, and always has been, the way the world of show business works. You ‘normal’ folks, if you’ll excuse the derogatory sting I’m sure that word carries with it, are now able to experience a little bit of that for yourself simply by signing up for a free website.

You have no desire to be famous, nor the time available to put in the effort to do so. You won’t be living the movie star cliche anytime soon, but guess what? Posting a picture up you think you look pretty damn hot in and coming back to a swarm of likes and comments about it is a pretty goddamn good facsimile of the situation. You’re not an established writer with a column, but you now have a format to easily post your opinions to hundreds of people and even have them shared by others. You’re not a comedian, but you can easily waltz into a department store, do something stupid on your cellphone, post it in seconds, and boom, now you’re experiencing a facsimile of what it’s like to be Jim Carrey, likes and LOL’s popping up from your hilarious antics.

I must admit, it kind of hurts. This is what was at the heart of all this distrust of these websites. Nowadays, culturally-approved beauty and an Instagram account is enough to experience what Elizabeth Taylor must have felt like walking down the red carpet. Why try for the real thing? It’s a ton of work and stress, and you only want the fun parts, right?

This is like a new app coming out called ‘Doctor for a Day’, where people can easily connect to hospital operating rooms through their phones and give helpful advice to the surgeons on what needs to be done. You can imagine the people who busted their asses in medical school for over a decade feeling a little pissed that suddenly it’s beyond easy for every jackass to dispense quack advice and feel important just because someone made the process of being able to get your voice heard in the operating room so breathtakingly stress free.

I have a slavish devotion to honesty in my art, and yet am still blindingly aware of how much of a constant tight rope act pursuing something like this is. You’re always controlling and sculpting what you put out there. And yet here our little Mensa student is, crying her eyes out about getting caught up in the quest for likes and how awful and fake it is.

Awful and fake it may be, sweetie, but that’s simply the world us artists and entertainers deal with every day. If she and the rest of this society wants to complain about the lack of real life on social media, I suggest you go back to reality and leave the vanity sites to the people who are actually supposed to use them, the ones whose thumping passion means we’ll never spend a day on this planet not calculating what we put out there to entertain you.

So for every wannabe Tom Green Vine star running around Target with an iPhone, every wannabe model getting the perfect ass angle for followers on instagram, and every motherfucking one of you out there trying to pimp yourself out in your spare time between college classes and kid-raising, I say to you: give it back to us. Only certain people are made to actually be able to handle these kinds of levels of narcissism, and that is us, the artists, writers, performers, singers, madmen, and clowns, the ones for whom constant public sculpting is an unavoidable side effect of their passion. Horrifically cliche as it may be, we do suffer for our art. Those of you gleefully counting the likes on the picture of your raspberry chicken walnut salad are mainlining our attention buzz without ever feeling the true pangs of a life dedicated to this behavior. Before you complain about how social media has gotten, start to think if it was really for you in the first place.

Shame on all of you normal people out there. Your love of social media has raped and robbed our rock star dreams of their special nature.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to watch some Netflix, smoke a bowl and masturbate before I give my two cents on this heart replacement surgery in a few hours.

OK, look, let’s get right down to the heart of the matter: if you want to chase females you’re going to have to put up with a lot of shit, all while making sure you yourself are immaculate in your presentation. The reason for this is that nature itself is out of whack. Women are crazy, but them being crazy isn’t that crazy – it’s just because they have vaginas. Sounds like a comedy bit, right? It isn’t. There’s so much going on down there, with ovaries and fallopian tubes freely dispersing chemicals that trigger onslaughts of emotion like they’re at an internal organ rave, it’s a wonder any of them can think properly. As guys, our dicks basically vehemently scream, ‘Empty me!’, when one of two substances fill them. That’s about it. But a woman’s magical garden of wet chemistry is like being on acid all the time. To get mad at their craziness would be like feeding your child six tabs of LSD and then complaining they seem removed. It’s natural, and, ‘crazy’, is almost synonymous with, ‘feminine’. Anger is more of the driving force behind male craziness, and when a guy is hypersensitive and emotional, it’s more seen as effeminate and faggy. That’s because having all those rapid fire emotions are a result of too many hormones and estrogen, where as testosterone simply births bouts of fist-smashing rage. So, step one, women are crazy, and it has nothing to do with their individual personalities. They are simply slaves to the cherry-pantie makers between their thighs. Accept it, don’t hate it, and move on.

Two, you have to realize that our sex drives are not equal. Women claim to want it just as bad as men, and yet their entire world is vulnerable to an undeniable influence simply by them being women. Men are going to approach them so much, so endlessly, from the moment their breasts make 6th grade gym class a living hell all the way up to when ovulation is a thing of the past, that their sex drives having an air of desperation about them is damn near impossible. Even women who are mildly attractive by the slavish cultural standards of beauty spend at least six hours a day worrying if the guy awkwardly propositioning them on the street is going to rape them. Meanwhile, geek-boy males live in such a world of sexual isolation that they climb watch towers with shotguns. Therefore, yes, we both really want it, but as a male, no one gives a fuck about you. Your gender is forever over-saturated on the dating market. No girl needs to worry about if another guy will come up to her soon, but every guy needs to worry about never attracting the attention of a girl. So, step two, realize you have to deal with a bunch of bullshit because your penis makes people not give a shit about you.

So now, if you want women, you have to put up with crazy beings that have beyond zero tolerance for discomfort. Oh sure, you’ll learn techniques to help you overcome all the little obstacles their uncomfortable traits will throw your way, but ain’t none of them gonna give a shit about any insecurities you have. Again, when we over-think this, we deny our natural gender roles. The entire objective when speaking to women is not to be a fag. And what does being a fag mean? Well, jump back two paragraphs. It means displaying feminine qualities. Females already have a massive torrent of emotions violating and influencing their every thought. Why should they have to deal with yours as well? Or, to put it a simpler way, they already have a pussy between their legs. They don’t need to be dating one.

Your natural job is to be a counterpart. Why do women hate nice guys? Because nice guys are too much like women! Dude, your faggot ass has been internally debating whether or not to kiss her for the past three hours. That’s some shit a vagina would produce. She can smell the similar stench and it’s not pleasant. It’s not an asshole thing to be fast and make a move – it’s a male thing. The testosterone tells you to grab her and kiss her and shuts up the wall of doubtful emotions she’s naturally releasing as a female, comforting her as your alpha energy takes the lead and brings in logic-based maleness as opposed to vagina-based madness. STOP CLINGING TO YOUR PERSONALITIES, IT’S JUST HOW OUR GENITALS AFFECT US. Don’t over-think it. An ‘asshole’ guy is more naturally testosterone based. A ‘nice’ guy is more naturally estrogen based. Females aren’t turned off by ‘nice guys’, they’re just responding to feminine qualities coming from a supposedly male suitor with a completely natural cognitive dissonance. PERSONALITIES ARE THE HEARTBREAKING ILLUSION. You think that girl you talk to wouldn’t go for the jerk because she’s so sweet but, uh oh!, her vagina is responding to the raw male energy and naturally drying up at the sound of your sensitive and romantic rumblings.

SO EVERYTHING, AT ALL TIMES, MUST ALWAYS, ALWAYS BE COOL. Once they sense the faggy, feminine energy come flying out of you, THEY WILL BE SLAVES TO THE URGE TO RUN AWAY. THE DNA URGE TAKES ANY SPECIFICITIES OF THEIR PERSONALITIES AND MAKES THEM SUCK ITS DICK. Why do you think these faggoty nice guys have such a hard fucking time? It can’t not leak out of them and it instantly turns them into the one thing every fiber of feminine DNA wants murdered. Got some emotional craziness going on in your head and you’re a male? ENJOY BEING ALONE, YOU CLINGY FUCKING FAGGOT. Got some emotional craziness going on in your head and you’re a female? Don’t worry, EVERY GUY ON THIS PLANET WANTS YOUR GENDER BADLY ENOUGH TO TAKE CLASSES ON HOW EXACTLY TO PUT UP WITH YOUR CRAZINESS LONG ENOUGH TO GET YOU WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY STIFLING ANY OF THEIRS WHATSOEVER.

And so the natural battlefield leaves the see-saw wildly uneven. We must deal with woman’s emotional craziness while shrugging with James Dean-esque cool while they regale us with tales of sleeping with other men because we all know how a whiney, genuinely upset, ‘YOU FUCKED SOMEONE ELSE?!’ sounds coming out of the mouth of a guy. It is for this reason that every man should be a ladies man. More experience naturally births more confidence, more assured hands leading you into a perfect kiss as opposed to fumbling at your side with a lack of finesse. We tell our young men how essential experience is for jobs and careers and yet don’t stress how essential of a natural role the promiscuous male is to society. We bat eyes at the concept of romance without understanding how intrinsically awful attempts made at it without confidence are. No, no, no. For those of us who wish to pursue women, we must be supermen, stoic pillars of logical and comforting male pride meant to tame the rowdy rapids that are the vagina-influenced brains of the female gender.

The social media entity known as ‘Jason Ellsworth’ is a lie. It is actually a page run by the government with the intent of discouraging rebellious mind states. Ever since facebook’s inception, we have been using our own version of graph search to locate certain personality types. Mr. Ellsworth, even from his first few posts, was exactly what we were looking for. We contacted him, offered him compensation for having his page taken over, and have been controlling every aspect of it ever since.

So why break our silence now? We believe that, after five years of his constant philosophizing, we have made our point and now wish to present it to you in hopes of eliminating any confusion. To be clear, the thoughts contained here were from Mr. Ellsworth’s mind, but were overseen by us. Mr. Ellsworth represents a stellar example of a very common and classic human archetype: the free thinker. Through this incessant look into his mentality, we hope to have once and for all neutered the romanticized appeal of this personality type.

You have now seen a solid half decade of posts trying to deal with a so-called, ‘elevated consciousness’, that have become increasingly more repetitive. Mr. Ellsworth has delved into the deepest realms of the human psyche and experience and come up with plenty of diatribes and yet no actual results. He is in no way further along than he was at the start of this journey, except on some meaningless mental plane of epiphanies. It has not led to advancement in the real world whatsoever.

Over the last few months, you may have noticed a frustration over the pointless nature of such revelations from none other than Mr. Ellsworth himself. Being aware, dear citizens, has always been and will always be a cruel trick. It simply makes you more conscious of the problems without any solutions. And why is that? Why is it that these psychedelic substances, so passionately preached by types like Mr. Ellsworth, can come up with a million amazing thoughts but yet not one actual concrete, applicable idea?

It’s because there are no solutions. Idealism is a promise from an absentee father, presented only to perpetuate false hope, a buoy that only floats on the sea of art. Art, a wonderful addition to our society, must be understood to be included. It is a bandage. When you slightly hurt yourself, you grab a bandage and it eases the pain. Beyond that, a bandage has no actual use to society, and if the pain increases to a more serious level, you will need to seek other outlets (surgery, doctors) to actually feel better. Artistic minds are naturally drawn towards questioning life and can become quite full of themselves from the presumed importance of these thoughts, mistakenly overestimating their potential to do something about it. They get their heads full of manifestos and revolutions, distribute them to the public, and get the false hope joyfully reverberating inside citizen’s skulls once again.

Minds like this forget their true purpose, that they are only supposed to be a bandage for the similar-minded. They get excited and think themselves to be capable of actually causing change as opposed to just spouting off philosophies, never realizing this is as impossible for them as much as effectively writing a song or constructing a poem is for most government officials. These types of brains are childlike dreamers and do not understand what it takes to actually run a country.

Much is made of us here at the government lying to you or working in secrecy, with people continually expressing anger over our ‘evil’ ways. This is the same as people who aren’t parents discussing raising children. Most of you have no clue what it takes to actually keep people in line. Of course we lie to you. Of course things are done behind your back. Do you know how many millions of people we have to keep from spewing into chaos? Do you think your loving parents told you every little part of their day to day lives when you were children? Of course not. Some things would scare you. Others would be pointless for you to know or only confuse or stress you. Human brains can respond extremely positively to truth, and yet the vessel it is contained in is often useless for real social change. To put it in other terms, Kurt Cobain works beautifully as a leader when he’s a musician speaking to depressed teenagers. His and other artist’s personality types wouldn’t work for a second when placed in positions that deal with actual societal issues, such as President. The realistic brain understands the very real dangers of feeding the public unadulterated truth.

This, dear citizens, is the fallacy of all artists, poets, philosophers, rebels, and free thinkers – that their exotic mindsets translate into anything useful other than, as noted, a bandage to soothe. We have made mistakes, some of which are very shameful. We are not perfect and we do operate behind closed doors. But we have given you a mostly peaceful existence, one that is much closer to what the artists sing about than most realize. Problems occur and are obsessed over, but what of all the people who are able to live quiet, harm-free lives because of what we have set up in this country? You cry over tragedies put under a microscope but neglect to look at how much of a functioning society we’ve really created. If you think you can improve on it, please be proactive in doing something about it instead of just ruminating through song or words. Taking that approach is fine, but it’s time to internalize the futility of it.

It is said free thinkers are dangerous, with the implication being they are the ones who will rattle the cages. It’s a true statement, but for a different reason. They are dangerous because they are charlatans. They preach beautiful lies. Idealism is thoughts of a dream world, so a dream world is the only place that particular sentiment has any use. We are a real society, with real people and real problems.

Mr. Ellsworth, through his hyper-analytical mentality, has reached the pinnacle of understanding. It has left him with nowhere to go. If he wishes to further himself, it will have to be in our world, the one he so often mocked. Even if he wants to push these thoughts out further into the public, an understanding of certain industries will be in order. How does the publishing world work? What agents will look at your material? You can see that no matter what path he chooses, anything other than a monk’s life of silence will require knowledge of this actual existence, the same one his type so claims to despise.

So for those of you who wish to actually participate in this world, your government asks one simple task of you: give up the dream of rebellion. It is a childish pursuit and one that leads to a dead end. We hope Mr. Ellsworth’s posts have been adequate proof of this. Thank you for your time, and please, continue to enjoy your society as law-abiding citizens.

This was the first thing Steve said as soon as he walked in the living room. Mabel jerked her head up violently.

“What?! Oh no! We just had unprotected sex six days ago!”

Steve laughed. “I don’t actually have AIDS. I just wanted to get your attention. We’re all out of ketchup.”

Mabel stopped, apparently confused. “Oh, um…I think we have some in the fridge.”

“Oh, um…I think we have some in the fridge,” Steve repeated mockingly. He opened up the fridge door and started noisily rustling around the items inside.

“Hmm, interesting. There’s none in here. Like I just said.”

“Oh.” Mabel still appeared dazed. “I guess I could go buy some.”

“You know what? Don’t bother.”

Steve walked out into the garage, grabbed a hammer, and, seemingly impervious to the pain, started whacking away at the back of his right hand. Mabel burst through the garage door, incredulous.

“Steve! What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Oh, nothing, Mabel. I’m just going to get some ketchup for my goddamn fries.”

“Fries? But there aren’t any-”

“Oven!” Steve screamed with much conviction.

Mabel ran to the oven and discovered there were indeed fries in there. She put on an oven mitt and took them out.

Just then Steve ran into the kitchen clutching his hand, which was ridiculously bruised and leaking blood. Swirling his hand above the tray of fries, he splattered blood all over them until it resembled ketchup.

“Well, I hope this tastes good!”

Steve shoved a huge amount of fries into his mouth with his good hand and started screaming, mouth still full, “You made me do this! You made me do this!”

Later that day, when Steve was in the hospital for his hand, Mabel called her mother to say she was having some marital problems.

In the evening, the estimate the doctor gave them for the surgery made them realize they wouldn’t be able to afford their retirement home anymore. Mabel cried.

Steve farted. It smelled.

PART TWO

Steve and Mabel had moved from their house to a smaller, modest, yet quaint apartment. It’d been a few months since the incident with Steve taking a hammer to his hand had caused Mabel much mental stress. They’d had their problems in the past, sure, but nothing like this. Steve smashing his hand with a hammer just to drizzle blood on his fries because they were out of ketchup? It made her mind reel just to look back on it. Her parents, her mother in particular, had pleaded with her afterwards to give up on Steve, her reasons plentiful and legit. The whole reason they’d had to move to the apartment was because the surgery to fix Steve’s hand had been so costly. But Mabel was an old-fashioned woman, and prided herself on being so, so she stuck by her man and tried to work it out.

There were little oddities that seemed to pop up here and there. Nothing as extreme as the hammer incident, but things that still made her wonder what was going on with her husband. She’d caught him talking a little too intently to their house plants a few times, and once she had come home to find Steve blaring obnoxious dance music and smashing various items from around the apartment, yelling, ‘Dance party!’ every time he did so. She was glad they never had kids. She wouldn’t know how to explain these things, being as that she had no clue herself. She’d asked Steve about therapy, and he’d refused. The lapses between these episodes were normal enough, albeit boring, that she let herself sink into a state of passive acceptance.

She missed the sense of romance that used to exist between them, as well as an active social life. Steve seemed content watching TV most nights, so she tried to plan fun activities for them like nights out or times like tonight, when she had invited Roger and Tess, a married couple and two of their oldest friends, over the house for dinner. When events like this were planned, Mabel always silently hoped Steve wouldn’t have one of his episodes. It would be so embarrassing and she had worked so hard to keep their private problems just that – private.

Judging by how this morning had gone, this was not to be one of those days.

Another one of Steve’s oddities was that he would, without anything actually tripping him up or happening to him at all, suddenly scream, ‘Oh shit!’, and then fling himself to the floor or against an object of furniture. Again, there was no explanation for it, and the cackle of peculiar laughter that Steve emitted afterwards was always a little creepy.

This was how she awoke this morning. She heard the familiar scream, ‘Oh shit!’, and then a loud crash. As she rushed into the living room, she found Steve splayed out over their coffee table.

“Goddamn it, Mabel, how many times have I told you this coffee table is in a bad spot?”

Mabel was confused. “It’s always been in the same spot. It’s in the middle of the living room. There’s plenty of room to go around it.”

“Oh, is there? Interesting, considering I almost just broke my fucking neck tripping over it. I guess I’ll have to set fire to it.”

“What?!”

“Yup. No other possible solution comes to mind. I’ll take it outside and light it up. Hey! It might be fun to make an Indian headband or something and dance around it while it’s on fire!”

Steve’s excitement over this idea was childlike, and if it weren’t for the disturbing weirdness of the scene, it might have been endearing to Mabel. She was only slightly getting used to these episodes and still trying to figure out how to deal with them. Would she be able to get through this, or would her marriage fail as so many of her friends’ had?

She decided on a stern, motherly tone. “Steve, you’re not going to do that. We’ve got company coming over tonight, remember? Roger and Tess will be by around six and I’m cooking a nice meal for us.”

“It’s not turkey feces, is it?” Steve asked this with much irritation in his voice. Mabel almost burst out laughing.

“No, Steve! Why would you say such a thing? I’m making a roast with some mashed potatoes and vegetables. You know, your favorite.”

Steve paused. “Well, that sounds agreeable. I’ll have to go and shower then. Will you take care of setting fire to the coffee table?” He paused, looking at her with much seriousness. “Outside, of course.”

“No, no one is setting fire to our coffee table. We’ll need it to entertain tonight. Now please, go and shower. I’m going to start on the roast.”

Steve looked like he was about to say something, but then turned and headed towards the bathroom. Mabel shook her head. She was about to be grateful for that being the end of it when she heard Steve calling to her.

“Mabel? I’ve got some bad news I forgot to tell you. This morning, before you got up, I was simultaneously looking at a picture of your sister and petting the cat, and I got a boner. Not sure which one caused it, but either way it can’t be good.”

Mabel frowned. This statement greatly worried her. They didn’t have a cat. She silently told herself to just get through this dinner, to prove that she could maintain a normal lifestyle.

* * * * *

Evening rolled around quickly, with Steve keeping to himself and Mabel putting all of her mental efforts into making sure the meal turned out well. Around quarter past six, the door knocked, and she opened it to find Roger and Tess in high spirits.

“Mabel, my girl! How are you?” Roger’s voice was booming. He was an enthusiastic, barrel-chested man, bulky and full of life. He embraced her.

“Thank you, dear.” Tess was done up to the nines, and it seemed there was a hope of this dinner going smoothly after all. Of course, Steve had not yet entered. As if on cue, he came bounding down the stairs. Mabel was pleased to see he looked nice, wearing a button down shirt and khakis.

“Roger! Tess! How are you?”

He ran over to Roger and shook his hand, then immediately pulled back, wincing.

“Ow! Jesus, Roger, you and those goddamn gorilla paws of yours! Careful! Don’t you know I just had surgery?”

“Did you? We didn’t hear anything about it. We haven’t talked in so long.”

Mabel nervously cut in. “Oh, it’s no big deal, Steve is healing just fine.” She was desperate to keep the madness a secret.

“No big deal? I had to smash my hand with a goddamn hammer just so I could substitute blood for ketchup because Mabel forgot to buy it!” He paused. “It didn’t even taste good!”

Roger and Tess burst out laughing at this statement, the absurdity of it apparently making it seem like a joke. Mabel was grateful for this.

“Well, that doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea, now does it, Tess? Maybe the next time we run out of lemonade, I’ll just unzip and make us a few glasses, eh?”

Tess playfully swatted at Roger, while Mabel blushed. She had forgotten about Roger’s boisterous sense of humor. He laughed like a madman for about a minute, amused at his own joke. Steve’s eyes seemed to have lit up after hearing it, and he went tearing off into the kitchen.

“I’ll make us some right now!”

Oh God, please no, Mabel thought. She rushed into the kitchen and found Steve was already urinating into a wine glass.

“Steve! Stop that right now!” She rushed over, full of purpose, and yanked the glass away from him. His urine started spraying onto the floor.

“Jesus fucking Christ Mabel, you’re spilling the lemonade all over the floor!”

Mabel couldn’t take it. She burst out crying right there. What had happened to her husband? Steve zipped up and went back to Roger and Tess and she worked quickly to clean the floor. By the time they got into the kitchen, it was clean, and she just said Steve had spilled something. Steve kept his mouth shut.

* * * * *

Surprisingly, nothing odd happened after that and the conversation was pleasant. They asked about moving to the apartment, and Mabel quickly wove a story of times being tough and doing away with things they didn’t need. She didn’t know if it was convincing, she was just hoping Steve wouldn’t do anything else.

They all sat down at the dining room table together. Mabel’s meal had turned out fantastic. Roger was full of energy, telling lots of stories with much energy, and in general the mood was upbeat and normal. Midway through the meal, Steve excused himself to go to the bathroom. After a few minutes, they all heard a crash.

“Ow! My fucking shin! That is it! I have had it with this goddamn coffee table!”

Mabel put her head in her hands, knowing this would be the start of something bad. A second later, there was the sound of a window breaking. They all rushed over to the living room to find Steve shirtless, panting, with the window smashed and the coffee table lying out in front of the apartment.

“Phew! Sorry guys, but that damn thing kept getting in the way. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to go outside and burn it.”

He walked outside and left the three of them standing there, shocked.

“Mabel, what the hell is going on?” Roger barked. His voice was gruff with concern. Mabel wondered how she could even begin to explain this bizarre behavior. What was wrong? She was going to attempt to come up with some meager explanation when she heard, ‘Oh shit!’ and suddenly, Steve’s body came smashing through another window and landed on the carpet.

“Jesus! Now the whole apartment is in the way! Well, don’t worry guys! I’ll take care of it!”

No one even knew how to react as Steve ran into another room and came back with a large hammer. ‘Oh Christ, he’s going for his hand again!‘ Mabel thought, but Steve began smashing holes in the walls left and right, looking like a possessed teenager in a mosh pit until Roger tackled him from behind.

* * * * *

The landlord came after hearing many different complaints about noise and strange activity and, upon surveying the damage, told them they were going to have to move out. Mabel was reduced to a sobbing mess as Roger and Tess tried to comfort her, saying she could stay at their place as long as she needed to. Roger turned to Steve, furious.

“Steve! Look at your wife! What the hell is going on with you?! Do you have any explanation for this madness?!”

Steve paused for a moment. His eyes looked contemplative. For about a minute, he seemed to be lost in thought. Everyone was eagerly awaiting a response, and from the looks of his face, it seemed like he might actually have something to say.

Then, just as he turned towards them, he let out an enormously loud and wet sounding fart. It went on for at least thirty seconds. After it was over, Steve looked Mabel in the eye.

Mabel had been on her own for a few months now, living in a studio apartment in a quiet part of town. After the horrendous dinner party where Steve had thrown the coffee table out the window and destroyed the apartment with hammers, she finally had to admit to herself it was time to leave him. It was not an easy move for her at all.

She had been with Steve for so long, forever it seemed like, that she wasn’t sure if she even knew how to live alone. The idea had frightened her whenever she thought about it, so much so that she had put up with Steve’s increasingly odd behavior for longer than seemed logical. She could not get over the feeling nagging at her heart that she still loved Steve, and that no matter what he did, he would be the one for her. She hated herself, truly despised at moments even, for being so old fashioned and thinking that divorce was a choice worse than death. That was how she had been brought up. She wasn’t sure which was harder to wrap her mind around: dismissing her traditional values, or actually walking away from the man she loved enough to marry.

Mabel had slowly been adjusting to life on her own in the apartment. She’d taken up painting as a way to try and relax, and the apartment was scattered with various canvases displaying her artwork. She didn’t think she was that good, but it was enjoyable. She liked showing the new paintings she’d done to friends when they came over the apartment, as it gave her a small sense of pride.

She would go out from time to time, trying to be social, and spend some time with friends in bars or restaurants. A couple of her friends tried to get her to date new guys, but everyone knew it was too soon. They could all see it in her face. The days weren’t that bad, but at night she hated sleeping alone and couldn’t help thinking of Steve and the nights she had fallen asleep with his arms wrapped around her. At times she missed him so badly that she was willing to completely overlook all of his disturbing behavior. She supposed these were the effects of the shackles of love, and tried to push everything down inside and not get in contact with him.

Eventually she realized she couldn’t do it anymore. She just couldn’t stand walking in the door after a day of work to a small, empty apartment. Her friends were all very supportive and tried to offer her as much of their time as they could, but there was just something about the arms of a husband that couldn’t be replaced.

She thought back to the night when Steve had ruined their apartment and how even then, through eyes clouded with tears, she had stood up for her man, saying they had been having a domestic dispute and that she wasn’t injured and didn’t want to press charges. Roger and Tess were appalled by Steve’s behavior and had told her he should be locked up or put in a mental hospital, but the idea of that had been too much for her. She had worked hard to make the cops think nothing had happened beyond property damage, and agreed to pay for any damages and leave the apartment. Then, in the hardest moment of her entire life, she told Steve she was going to leave him and live on her own.

A few months later, after she was set up in the studio apartment, she had gotten a letter from Steve saying that he had also found a new living situation, that he was doing just fine, and that if she ever wanted to stop by she could. His address was listed at the bottom of it. Every single one of her friends said they thought it was a bad idea and chastised her for even thinking about it. She hated herself for wanting to go so badly and spent most of her lonely nights trying to fight the urge to do so, until one day she couldn’t take it anymore.

She wanted to see him and she didn’t care how anyone, even herself, felt about it.

Steve’s new place was in a part of town she had never been to before, and as she followed her printed out directions, she realized he was living in a bad neighborhood. As she looked around she saw that it was, to use an unflattering term, a ghetto. There was no other way to describe it.

Graffiti was everywhere and every storefront looked run down. Trash littered the streets and menacing looking characters seemed to be perched on every street corner. Mabel felt her heartbeat quicken-she wasn’t used to situations like this and was shocked this was the area Steve had chosen to live in. She felt compelled to turn around, taking this as an omen of this whole venture being a bad idea, but she couldn’t deny that she felt an odd surge of excitement, either from the idea of actually seeing Steve again or from being in an unfamiliar environment.

She found the address and was dismayed to find that the building looked even more run down than the other ones. It was the most unwelcoming place she had ever seen and it took all the courage she had to walk inside, past the young kids outside smoking what smelled like marijuana, and find Steve’s apartment number. She knocked on the door.

To her surprise, a massive African-American man opened the door. He was huge, with bulging muscles and a shaved head with a bandanna tied around it, dressed in an extremely tight tank top and basketball shorts. What appeared to be a thin cigar hung from his lips, letting out smoke that Mabel once again recognized as marijuana. She was extremely nervous as he stared at her in confusion.

“Sup?”

“Um…is, uh, Steve here?” She had never heard her voice sound so uncertain or afraid.

He looked at her quizzically. Then, suddenly, his face lit up with a touch of amusement. “Oh, you mean Dr. Blown Out Bootyhole?”

She had no idea what to say to this statement and was struggling to come up with a response when she was abruptly jolted by the sound of a familiar voice coming from somewhere inside the apartment.

“Dontarious? You out there? We need some more toilet paper. I used an entire roll trying to sop up the blood spilling out of my anus! We should either go buy a ton at Costco for cheap, or you need to stop hammering me so hard!”

He then laughed a laugh that was very familiar to Mabel, and a second later there her husband was, looking quite different. His hair had been done in a style Mabel thought was called ‘cornrows’, and he had the same bandanna tied around his head as the large black man, apparently named Dontarious, did. He was wearing a basketball jersey and baggy pants.

“Ay yo, man, this white chick just showed up looking for you. Is this your wifey you were telling me about?”

Steve’s face lit up in a way that made him seem familiar despite his strange appearance. “Mabel! You’ve come to visit! Come in!”

He hugged her enthusiastically and pulled her inside. The apartment was a wreck, and all she could smell was the pungent odor of marijuana. She sat down on a couch that looked very unsanitary.

“Well, yeah, but he’s so much more than that! Mabel, meet Dontarious, my roommate, lover and rap partner!”

Dontarious extended his hand to Mabel, who could barely function, as she was still reeling from Steve’s statement. “Your husband has a sweet ass. I been tearing it up.”

She simply could not find the words. Jaw agape, she sat horrified, as Steve continued with the energy of a young child: “Dontarious has been showing me the ropes of the rap game! I don’t know if I ever told you this Mabel, but black people have always fascinated me! I always wondered what the rap life was all about, and now I’ve been finding out! First, I got a cool rap name, because no one uses their real names in rap! The one Dontarious gave to me is Dr. Blown Out Bootyhole, because he says I have a PhD in ‘getting my ass all tore up’, as he puts it. Here’s a promo picture we took.”

He handed Mabel a picture. It was of Steve with a backwards hat on, and nothing else. He was bent over in front of the camera with his anus exposed, and the words ‘Docta Blown Out Bootyhole‘ were written in some crude font that was difficult to read. Mabel knew in her heart that this had been an awful mistake and she fought back the tears she was now so used to as she realized her husband was truly losing his mind, and caught up in something she couldn’t even comprehend.

“Steve, I have to go…” Her voice was choked and timid.

“Oh, nonsense! You just got here! Anyway, let me tell you about the amazing things that have been happening. A few weeks ago, I had sex for the first time ever!”

Even through her fear and pain, Mabel balked at this statement. “But Steve, we had sex so many times…”

“Oh, I know, but I’m talking about anal sex, something we never did. Let me tell you, the feeling of having a penis go up your asshole is amazing! It seems like so many guys are afraid of it, but I thought it was incredible! And when the hot semen blasts up there, it’s as comforting a feeling as wrapping yourself in warm laundry straight out of the dryer!”

He paused and looked at her. “Have you ever done that? Not anal sex, but wrapping yourself in warm clothes?”

She held back tears. Steve’s casual nature of dispersing information this abnormal and upsetting was beyond disturbing. She suddenly felt trapped in a situation her old fashioned mind didn’t even know how to grasp. She had to get out of here. The smoke from Dontarious’ cigar bothered her eyes and nose and made her feel weird.

“Ay yo, Docta Blown Out! You wanna show your wifey how we get down around here?” He gave Steve a look that made Mabel’s skin crawl.

Steve’s attitude was jovial. “Well, I don’t know. I think I’m still kind of bleeding from last time.” He chuckled. Mabel tried to find the courage to stand and leave the couch.

“I don’t give a fuck. I told you if you were gonna crash here it was gonna be prison rules. Wifey can watch. It kinda turns me on.”

Before Mabel could even process what was happening, Dontarious grabbed Steve with his massive hands and flung him over the countertop in the kitchen. Steve’s baggy pants were ripped off of him, and suddenly Mabel’s eyes bulged as she watched this incredibly large and buff man stick a penis that was bigger than any one she’d ever seen inside of her husband’s anus. Steve gripped onto the counter and let out a gasp of air. Then Dontarious was a blur of rapid movement, jack hammering in and out so violently that Steve’s hands looked like they were gripping the counter for dear life.

He turned and looked Mabel in the eye with the most peculiar expression she’d ever seen on his face. “Wow! You really never get used to how big this thing is! Holy shit!” Mabel was a statue of quiet despair. After a few more minutes of the brutal assault on Steve’s anus and Mabel’s psyche, Steve started making sounds of real pain, almost screaming out one-syllable words.

“Here it comes,” Dontarious shouted. “You better take all this shit!”

“Mabel! The semen is coming!” And then Dontarious’ whole body shook as he let out a disgusting grunt of pleasure, Steve simultaneously letting out a high-pitched shriek. Steve collapsed to the floor. Dontarious exhaled and spoke with enthusiasm.

“That’s how you do it! That’s why you’s the docta! I’ma go take a shower and wash all this blood off my dick.”

He left the room, leaving Mabel staring at Steve, who was still lying on the ground. He slowly got up and walked over to the couch wobbly, as if he had two broken legs.

“Man, what a workout! Anyway, Mabel, it’s good to see you! How’s your new place?”

Mabel glared at him. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Steve! What the fuck is going on here? You used to be normal and now for months and months I’ve seen nothing but bizarre behavior from you! My heart can’t take this! What happened to our life together?! Tell me!”

She screamed the last part in a way that was completely uncharacteristic for her reserved personality. Steve stared back at her, confused.

“Is this because you’re jealous of Dontarious? I’m sure he’d be just as willing to blow out your butt hole. You just need a cool name and we could be a rap duo!”

This response killed the last semblance of hope inside Mabel. All those months of longing for some kind of reconciliation with her husband died instantly. She felt an overpowering sense of bewildered disgust and stormed out of the apartment without saying a word.

That night, feeling more alone than she thought was possible, Mabel slit her wrists and bled to death in her quiet studio apartment. She felt she had no sort of grip on the world she lived in after what she had just witnessed. Around the same time the last drops of blood were draining from her wrist, Steve was once again dealing with a massive amount of blood leaking out of his anus.

Dabbing at it with a bulky wad of toilet paper that was quickly turning a dark crimson hue, he excitedly thought about how much material he was getting for his debut rap single. He was going to call it, ‘Strawberry Chocolate’, a slang term he came up with for what toilet paper usually looked like now after he used it. Suddenly, as he was wiping the blood, a dark turd slipped out and fell on the floor. Dontarious walked in a moment later, a disgusted look on his face. His whole bathroom smelled.

Recently, I was reading an article about Bernie Sanders being asked whether or not a President needs to believe in God. While he has been praised for his humanist answer, it wasn’t the part of the article that stuck with me. It referenced a study where it was discovered that 53% of Americans didn’t believe an atheist could be President, and, more so than that, was the most negative quality a candidate could have, even lower having an extramarital affair.

Never have I been so legitimately terrified of living on this planet.

We can debate the authenticity of online article statistics if you want, but it’s not the point. Regardless of what the exact number, I know how many people in this country feel this way, and hold God in such high esteem. What I don’t think these believers realize is that they are the luckiest, most overprivileged and spoiled people on the planet. I don’t know if they can even comprehend how insanely good they have it.

Believing in God should be a personal choice that means something to you in a way akin to how we feel about our favorite musicians, authors, and artists. While it’s true that my personal hope is to eliminate belief entirely for hope of a more connected, loving, and evolved society, I ofttimes have to admit the crushingly close-minded nature of this, and many atheist’s mindsets. If you want to go home and pray to God so that you can have a genuine moment of comforting solace as I might feel when listening to a Nirvana record, who am I to say you can’t?

Here’s the problem: living in this country as an atheist is similar to being forced to be a Nirvana fan, or being forced to be a fan of any artist for that matter. Were I to start screaming how a President should be able to appreciate Kurt Cobain’s lyrics to be effective, or that children should be reciting ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ lines before class everyone morning, or even that I wanted Mr. Cobain’s beautifully scruffy mug on the one dollar bill, I would be laughed at and told that these were absolutely ludicrous things to ask for.

Yet, as an atheist, I’m forced to buy my drugs with money that says I trust in God, have him mentioned in our national pledge, and have to deal with the fact that an overwhelming percentage of my fellow humans think believing in the sky man is one of the most important qualities a Presidential candidate could have.

Honestly, how would you feel if 53% of Americans thought a President needed to be able to vibe to The Doors instead of thinking of Jim Morrison’s lyrics as disposable pseudo-shaman garbage? Can you really tell me you wouldn’t be agape with horror over the planet you’re living on?

‘But how could you possibly compare dead rock stars to God?!’, you may cry. And therein lies the problem. Kurt Cobain has easily meant as much to me and given me as much inspiration as God has given to any believer, and yet you guys get to have your personal savior as an intrinsic building block of this country. You get to have him be ingrained in our collective conscious and held in such high regard that some people ‘Put God first’, even before their own children. You get to walk into the supermarket and buy a candy bar knowing that the government who controls everything has decided God is real enough to be on the pieces of paper that limit every facet of our existence.

Yes, I am a douchey atheist. I feel that believing in God is a weak, idiotic act that indicates such a gaping antithesis of logic at its core that it’s mind-boggling. I fret over seeing otherwise intelligent, capable adults cling to fairy tales with a white-knuckle tenacity while ritually dismissing Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, convinced of cloud palaces and fiery pits of hell a loving being made for his creations with a certainty that is horrifying. I want to destroy him in the mind of every person and have them put that worshipful energy into their fellow humans instead. I am aware that none of these thoughts even come close to approaching a place of originality and are the same old tired atheist arguments. But they are not the point.

Despite this hate, I do, as I said, concede you may as well be able to pray to God to feel better. But when such a large chunk of our species actually thinks a President needs to believe in such things to be effective, I can’t help but see it as the most blatant indicator of the dangers of belief ever. A President’s only concern should be the wellbeing of the people. His belief should be brought up maybe once or twice as a nicety, like finding out what kind of books Obama likes reading, but to have God be of this much importance to what people want in a leader is truly a scary thought.

Believers often get mad at how hard we go at them. Once again, it is douchey in its unchecked aggression. However, decades of intense atheists protests wouldn’t even come close to matching the stranglehold believers have on this existence of ours. We could fight for years and still wouldn’t be as ingrained into society as the concept of God is.

So all you believers should get down on your knees and thank the big guy that what you chose to get you through the day is so nationally validated, because living in this country as someone on the other side is, simply put, fucking terrifying.

Now, can I get ‘Light My Fire’ played every day before kids start school, please?